


heaven and hell were words to me

by qiras



Series: reylo week 2018 [5]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, It's unhealthy, also rey is drunk as a coping method, and if anything about self harm is gonna trigger you then skip this one please, and implied/referenced former self harm warning, fair warning this is... really really dark, it ends happy but it's really dark okay, reyloweek2018, self harm warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-04-28 19:12:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14455917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qiras/pseuds/qiras
Summary: two weeks ago, rey saw her best friend kiss a girl. she'd seen that before, but this time, something in her broke. this time, she realized he was never going to love her like she loves him. and that's okay, really. it's her problem, not his, but she misses him, and she's just so upset, and self-medicating with alcohol isn't hergreatestchoice, probably, but at nine p.m., it doesn't seem like a big deal. the story changes a great deal in five hours.written for reyloweek2018 day five: wounds.





	heaven and hell were words to me

**Author's Note:**

> for real, you guys. it ends happy, but rey's in a pretty dark place at the beginning, and if that's gonna trigger you, then please, please don't read this. take care of yourselves, okay? <3

Rey is absolutely fucking hammered right now, thanks for asking. It’s supposed to make unrequited love easier to deal with, the alcohol is. It doesn’t. Instead, all she feels is _alone again_ and _something wrong with her_ and _hate and hate and hate_ and _she hates herself_ , which didn’t used to be a difficult leap to make, but she really thought she’d gotten better. And she’s sobbing, hiccupping, looking into the bathroom mirror at her rimmed-red eyes and messy hair and she wants to make the pain _release_ , needs it, _desperately_ , and she’s not even sure how she got here, two in the morning and drunk off her ass and clutching a razor in her hand again and wanting to press it to her thigh again, but she’s here.

And she looks into the mirror again and she cries harder, drops the razor in the kitchen sink and her body shakes with fear at her own self. She grabs for her phone and with a tap and two swipes, she makes a call to the one person she isn’t supposed to call.

They pick up, and she asks, “Ben? Ben, I’m so sorry. I know,” she gasps, face wet, “I know I shouldn’t be calling. But please, please come over. Please, I need you.”

He doesn’t even answer. The line goes dead on the other end and she cries harder, cursing herself for a weak fool. Almost against her will, her hand dips into the sink and picks up the razor blade, fingertips playing against the sharp edge. She cannot start this again. She’s been clean for so long, for years...

Still...

A combination of the alcohol and the feeling pressed against her chest send her to her knees in front of the toilet bowl, retching and retching, though there’s nothing but the half a bottle of vodka in her stomach to throw up. She sits between the toilet and the sink, head resting, tilted, against the cupboard under the sink, legs sprawled out, sleep-shirt pulled up around her hips, and the razor still clutched in her hand. Slowly, she turns her legs to open up the insides of her thighs and presses the razor there, not cutting, not yet, but feeling the pressure and nearly feeling the release all the same.

Her front door opens, and her flinch slices her skin open. “Rey?” he calls. Oh. She’d forgotten she’d given him a key, weeks ago, before she’d shattered their friendship. “Rey, where are you?” He waits, and she can hear him moving around her apartment, but she doesn’t have the capacity to answer right now. “Can you please answer me, sweetheart? Or make some kind of noise? You’re scaring me.” 

She can’t, she can’t, she can’t, she can’t, _she can’t_.

Her apartment isn’t that big, anyway; it doesn’t take him very long to find her. Ben takes in the scene: her bathroom, still smelling vaguely of vomit, the half-empty bottle of vodka sitting on the sink, and Rey slumped on the floor, eyes dead and razor pressed to her skin, blood seeping from the shallow cut she’d made over the graves of the others on her left thigh.

“Oh, fuck,” he says, and he drops to his knees in front of her. “Shit, shit, shit,” he swears, and he grabs the roll of toilet paper and presses a wad to her thigh, soaks up the blood. “I should have been here sooner, sweetheart. Fuck. I’m so sorry.”

Ben gathers her up in his arms, pries the razor blade from her grip, and sets her on the bathroom counter. It’s not difficult for him to find her antiseptics or bandages. He cleans and bandages her cut.

“It wasn’t on purpose,” she says. “I was thinking about it, yeah, but I didn’t actually cut. There was a sound--” she isn't going to tell him it was when he opened the door because she knows him and he will blame himself and she can't have that-- “and it surprised me, and I jumped a little, and it cut me. It wasn’t on purpose.” He needs to know that, needs to know she hasn’t just thrown everything out the window. But Ben just shushes her, cradles her in his arms again, and her traitorous, alcohol-soaked tongue says, “I missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too,” he says.

“I’m sorry I freaked out,” Rey slurs, “when I saw you with whatever-her-name is. It’s not my place. I don’t get to fucking... do that, and I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry, but I also never fucking learned to apologize and I don’t deal with shit healthy and so I’ve been in a bad fucking place, obviously, but that’s not your problem so I’m just gonna shut the fuck up now.”

One of Ben’s hands comes up and threads through her hair and he presses her face to his neck, rocks her back in forth. “No, no, love, no, it’s okay. I want to help you with your problems. It’s okay to need other people, Rey, you’re not alone. It’s okay.”

And she’s laughing and crying and she thinks that she loves him so much, has never loved anyone else this much, doesn’t think she can ever love anyone else this much, and she feels him go still in her arms and says, “Oh. Did I say that out loud?”

“Yeah,” he says, voice hoarse.

“Well,” she swallows and tears prick at her eyes because this is it, this is where she loses him too, “it’s true. I love you.”

Ben picks her up off the bathroom counter and sweeps her bridal-style into his arms. “Tell me that again, when you’re sober,” he says as he carries her to her room and lays her on her bed. He pulls away from her, and her arms tighten around her neck.

“Please,” she begs. “Don’t leave me.”

“I’m gonna get you some water and some medicine, okay? I’ll be right back, I promise.” 

Rey watches him leave and counts the seconds until he is back, holding a glass and some Advil. He sets them on her nightstand, and she wraps her hand around his wrist and says again, “Please don’t leave me, Ben. Please.”

She tugs his wrist insistently, pulls her to him, and he says, “Is it okay if I sleep here with you?” “Please,” Rey whispers.

“Okay,” Ben says, and he crawls into bed next to her. She manages to maneuver her muscles in spite of the alcohol, and she curls herself into a ball with her head and torso pillowed entirely on his chest. “Rey?” he says. “If you tell me you love me in the morning... I’ll tell you I love you too.”

“Okay,” Rey says, eyes heavy. “Okay, I love you. Good night.” 

She’s asleep within seconds, but still, she feels his kiss pressed to her hair, and hears him whisper, “Good night, sweetheart. I love you too, beautiful girl.”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading, lovelies!


End file.
